Cards

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Apparently, I Am Highly Lucky and Arbitrarily Awesome

Before the NL Wild Card game, Brian, proprietor of Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary, held a contest. The objective was simple: predict how many K's strikeout kings Madison Bumgarner, Noah Syndergaard, and their supportive bullpens would induce, and which staff would punch out the most opponents. The tie-breaker was to name the individual batter with the most whiffs.

Well, as it turned out, I won. I used a highly scientific process to make my picks. It went something like this: I think there will be about 18 strikeouts in the game and Syndergaard will strike out more. Thank goodness that was all it took to win, because my science of "umm, Brandon Belt" as to who would whiff the most was flawed; Belt didn't strike out once and my tie-breaker would have failed.

As a reward, I got an envelope of goodies from Brian.

First, some BYU alumni Major Leaguers. Vance Law is not as well-known as his father, hurler Vern Law, but he was a pretty good player in his own right. Plus, he played for both BYU and the Cubs, so he's always been a personal favorite of mine. Law came back to his alma mater as the head baseball coach for a while, too. Cory Snyder set a bunch of NCAA records for the Cougars and had went on to a solid, if not spectacular MLB career. He's a good guy and one of my few TTM successes to boot, as he signed some cards for me and my boys last year. Wally Joyner has the distinction of becoming the first rookie named to an All-Star team since fan input started in the early 1970s.

Now for some Cubbies. The 1969 Deckle Edge Don Kessinger is now the oldest Cubs card I own, and it's in pretty good shape, too. The Kris Bryant proudly states he was "ROY," and it's well-established on this blog that I collect anybody in that category. The fact that is now the best player on my team is just gravy. Todd Hollandsworth is another "ROY," though he played for the Dodgers when he won the award. This is actually my first card of Hollandsworth as a Cub. How is that possible?

But THIS. If all Brian had sent me was this one card, then all of my prognostication of random numbers and educated guesses about which pitcher would have more strikeouts would have been worth it. Here we have a Packers legend in true-to-life vintage--1966 Philadelphia. This card is well-loved and has a couple of creases, but it is easily one of my favorite Packers cards in my collection.

Thanks, Brian for a great contest. It was actually my first blog-sponsored contest win, ever.